Roberts' quote of John Marshall

I've started reading the Obamacare ruling and the most striking thing, aside from the fact that Chief Justice Roberts came down on the side of the more liberal Justices on the Court in the first place, is this passage:

"Nearly two centuries ago, Chief Justice Marshall observed that 'the question respecting the extent of the powers actually granted' to the Federal Government 'is perpetually arising, and will probably continue to arise, as long as our system shall exist.' McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 405 (1819)."

In interviews I've read, particularly a long one from the Atlantic Monthly nearing the end of his first term as I recall, Roberts often name checks John Marshall as the model of Chief Justice he wants to be.

Now, I need to read the rest of the ruling before drawing any conclusions, but I thought that passage being cited near the beginning was rather noteworthy. This could mean Roberts
(and, for that matter, Marshall himself) is simply espousing the fatalistic view regarding the trajectory of all Empires, but I guess I need to go back and look at McCulloch after I manage to finish the current ruling at hand.

I doubt many in the coming months of hellfire 'til November will bother to do that, and certainly among the loudest of voices you'll hear. I am certain by the time he gives his speech, President Obama will have read it. And that is the kind of person we need to keep in office, certain disappointments notwithstanding. In fact, once Obama's second term is up, and maybe about fifty years or so have passed, 44 will go down as one of a very few voices in American politics with any dose of reality, or sanity, for that matter. As I've mentioned often in here, in today's climate, President Eisenhower (and the GOP Congress he had in 1954) would be considered a "tax and spend liberal." Obama extends that to Reagan too but that is a bit of a stretch IMHO. Summer reading, here we come!

Ah, the blog. Starting to gather dust. Still here for the ages, but rapidly becoming extinct. Most of my private thoughts I keep to my written journal, one I've kept since 1990. That had fallen by the wayside a bit as the online activity picked up, but now things are evolving back to public v. private. And that is a good thing. Because unless you can read my handwriting, it's like interpreting code.


A few things have happened in the past couple of months that could be considered "life changing" to a degree. Probably the biggest event was the burglary that happened at our house back on March 13th. We had this false sense of security that an alarm system would keep us safe. But the perps had obviously been casing all the houses on our block and in our neighborhood, because K & Brenna had left to pick up Livie from preschool and headed right back. They were gone for 15-20 minutes. When they returned, the alarm was beeping and the house was ransacked. All visible electronic devices were taken, but thankfully not my external drive with virtually all of our digital photos. K ran next door to our neighbor's house (he is somewhat older and hard of hearing so did not see what was taking place) and called 911. By then our neighbor on the other side of our house's alarm had tripped off, too, so the cops were heading their way. But it took 5-10 more minutes. See, this is also what the perps know: an alarm system is only as good as the police response time. And OPD is severely understaffed. It seems our society's zeal for "lower taxes" strikes again. Oh well, I guess the real taxation comes by way of private insurance, which thankfully was there for us to replace our (replaceable) items.


Two things cascaded from that event. The first is a brand new iMac which I am now devoting time to building a proper DAW studio once and for all. I was planning on getting Logic and building off of that, but then a friend of the family, Scott Ghene, who was visiting from Rochester, floored me with what was to come next. He was at guitar center and wanted to get me ProTools, so he showed up with Protools MP Fastrack Ultra the next day. This will help me get up to speed more quickly and start taking on more music. It has been tough since our house doesn't have enough room for me to set up all of my old (antiquated, but not vintage) analog gear...so I've sort of been lying in wait. And, it's time to wake up. Huge shoutout and thanks to Scott!


The second event was much bigger (for me): We got a dog. I was the firewall between the girls' desire to have one and the reality of us actually getting one. But the burglary breached that firewall in a big way. So we took our time to find the right rescue dog. We wanted one that was house-broken, good with kids, and also somewhat menacing looking. We found him through Coppers Dream Rescue. His name was Amos, but that name is unacceptable. So we began thinking...what would be a good name that sounded somewhat like Amos? Seamus!


And here he is.

Here are some more photos.

My sweet little Brenna is now 2 years old. She's a craft one, and parrots her big sister often these days. I have a lot of cute videos of this, but the time to edit and post I need more of. In the meantime, here's a photo album that chronicles the past year for our family.

It was a very meaningful Christmas this year. This is the "zone" for excitement in the girls (4 and almost 2). We opened presents at 7am and then headed south to Margo and Greg's to cook for the extended family (as we did with Thanksgiving). My focus was pretty much exclusively on not fucking up the 18 lb. Prime Rib and keeping the other eye on the Pack clinching the #1 seed against the hated Chicago Bears. And K whipped up a storm with Pork Loin Wellington with Sake sauce, some crab, brussels spouts, luscious
mashed potatoes, quinoa, fresh beet salad and more...

Since I won a Kindle Fire at the company Christmas party this year, that made my main gift to k somewhat of a no-brainier: a dodo case for the kindle fire. Made here in SF. A real book with bamboo inlay that is really elegantly designed. K's gift to me was an extension to the Kitchen Aid mixer I got for her so many years ago when we lived in El Cerrito. She had wanted a blender. And back then I couldn't even cook a proper spaghetti. The extension includes a meat grinder and a mechanism for making sausage. Hello? "Sausage!"

The big reason why this Christmas was so meaningful was the heart and soul K put into the gifts for the extended family. Instead if buying gifts this year, she made them. Hats, leggings, and embroiled bookmarks based on Olivia's drawings. I will be putting together a little scrapbook of this soon.

Love to all, b

Today is Olivia's 4th birthday! Time has flown by. When she was born we were still living in Santa Clara, not sure where we were headed next. The sleepless nights, pumping for extra milk, worries about jaundice, bewilderment about how our lives had just changed, excitement for the future...it was pretty overwhelming. Mostly, that sense of being overwhelmed was in a good way - we wanted this. And then, when Livie was about 2, we were beginning to think: Hey, we've GOT this! And then Brenna came along.

Now Livie has a pretty well established identity, a fiery, independent spirit who is a challenge at times, but also who has a sweet, caring and empathetic disposition. She's very articulate verbally, almost to the point where we sometimes forget that she's just turned 4! She and Brenna are playing well together these days and she's beginning to show signs of the big sister looking after her younger one. Brenna is a little parrot of Livie right now, everything Livie's been saying, Brenna tries to repeat. It really is the main reason we decided to have two kids, so they could grow together, share together, laugh (and inevitably of course lock horns) together.

Most of all, (knock on wood) we are grateful to have two healthy, happy little girls and we're doing the best that we can at this parenting thing.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately - the time since Beulah called it a day has almost been as long as we were a functioning band (this doesn't count the two years or so where MK and I noodled together HWS), and though musical forays have been few and far between, I've managed to cobble together a living to be able to help provide for two happy and healthy girls. It doesn't make much for copy but I'm glad for the way life has gone. Do I miss touring, making records, the excitement from our fans at our shows? Sometimes - of course! But better to have given it a go, right? K & I are lucky that we were able to establish our individuality, whatever you want to call it, and a semblance of a career and/or artistic direction before settling down and having our kids. Not everyone is able to do that, and we count our blessings every day!

Happy birthday, sweet Livie!

 

Approaching the weekend where K and some of her pals go north to Calistoga and I wrangle the girls. We have plans. First, music class for Livie at Acme House of Music...love that shop and Annette is an awesome teacher. She's so patient with those tots, and Livie is not easy to keep still. Then I'm debating whether or not to take them to a District 4 townhall meeting...I may not. It may be too much to bring a 3 1/2 and 1 yr old. Then, perhaps, Farmers' market at Lakeshore. Hmmm, what to do in the afternoon?